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More than a cookbook, In Late Winter We Ate Pears is a love affair with a culture and a way of life. In vignettes taken from their year in Italy, husband and wife Caleb Barber and Deirdre Heekin offer glimpses of a young, vibrant Italy: of rolling out pizza dough in an ancient hilltown at midnight while wild dogs bay in the abandoned streets; of the fogged car windows of an ancient lovers' lane amid the olive groves outside Prato.

The recipes in In Late Winter We Ate Pears are every bit as delicious as the memories. Selections such as red snapper with fennel sauce, fresh figs with balsamic vinegar and mint, and frangipane and plum tart capture the essence of Italy. Following the tradition of Italian cuisine, the 80 recipes are laid out according to season, to suggest taking advantage of your freshest local ingredients.

Whether you are an experienced cook looking for authentic Italian recipes or a beginner wanting to immerse yourself in the romance of a young couple's culinary adventure, In Late Winter We Ate Pears provides rich sustenance in the best tradition of travel and food writing.

Cheers to Chef Barber and writer Deirdre Heekin for sharing these marvelous recipes from Osteria Pane e Salute (Pane translates as bread and Salute as health) and for sharing the story of a most inspired year spent in Italy. In Late Winter We Ate Pears is a testament that bread and health are the things that make a good life.

REVIEWS AND PRAISE

"Just right! An inspiring and informative personal quest and a deeply felt journey into the heart and soul of Italian artisinal cuisine."--Anthony Bourdain, author of A Cook's Tour and Kitchen Confidential

"Enchanting!"--Joan Nathan, author of Jewish Cooking in America

"As beautifully and evocatively written as any novel."--Hartford Courant

"In our mad-rush society, these enchanting essays and delicious recipes remind us of what Italians have always known: one of life's greatest pleasures is to linger at the table with good food and the company of loved ones. And now Deirdre Heekin and Caleb Barber have given us a truly original guide that teaches us, once again, to taste, to savor, to love."--John Searles, author of Boy Still Missing

"A winning and well-written volume full of honest Italian cooking and memories."--Publishers Weekly

"A treat for the senses. The writing will encourage all readers to sit down and savor. You can almost taste the recipes as you read them. Simple and clear instructions will bring Italy into the kitchens of even the most faint-hearted of cooks."--Bill Eichner, author of The New Family Cookbook

"Not just a cookbook but a love story--between a man and a woman, a couple and two countries, a chef and a writer and the food they love. Deirdre Heekin and Caleb Barber understand the meaning of nurture, and they serve their readers lavishly, inviting us into their story and their kitchen. We savor the flavor of their lives and their table in prose that is good enough to eat."--Julia Alvarez, author of In the Time of the Butterflies and A Cafecito Story

"I was charmed by the devotion of these two young Americans to the cuisine and customs of Italy. Deirdre Heekin's thoughtful narrative captures the essence of my country so that I'm made to see it through fresh eyes."--Francesca Duranti, author of Left-Handed Dreams and The House on Moon Lake

"The vignettes of their working Italian sojourns, during which they absorbed many secrets of kitchen and culture, bring a vivid allure to their narrative, just as the fruits of their experience are everywhere apparent in their marvelous osteria."--The Common Reader

"This winning little tome will convince you that the owners of Woodstock's Pane e Salute are bringing true Italian sensibility to this snowy northern state with their osteria."--Epicurious

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Deirdre Heekin

Deirdre Heekin is the author of An Unlikely Vineyard. She is the proprietor and wine director of Osteria Pane e Salute, an acclaimed restaurant and wine bar in Woodstock, Vermont. Heekin and her husband and head chef, Caleb Barber, are the authors of In Late Winter We Ate Pears (Chelsea Green, 2009), and she is also the author of Libation: A Bitter Alchemy (Chelsea Green, 2009) and Pane e Salute (Invisible Cities Press, 2002). Heekin and her husband live on a small farm in Vermont, where they grow both the vegetables for their restaurant and natural wines and ciders for their la garagista label.

CONNECT WITH THIS AUTHOR

Caleb Barber

Deirdre Heekin and Caleb Barber are the proprietors and, respectively, wine director and head chef of Osteria Pane e Salute, a boutique restaurant and wine bar in Woodstock, Vermont, recently acclaimed in Bon Appétit, The Boston Globe, Travel and Leisure, and Attaché. Heekin and Barber grow most of their own produce in addition to working with local farm partners. In preparation for his role as head chef of Osteria Pane e Salute, Barber apprenticed with an artisanal baker and in a small trattoria in Tuscany.

Heekin and Barber live in Barnard, Vermont, where Heekin produces artisanal after-dinner brandies and micro-vintage garage wine for the osteria. Visit Deirdre and Caleb's blog, Fuoricitta (Out of The City), at http://fuoricitta.blogspot.com/

ALSO BY THIS AUTHOR

For many years, Deirdre Heekin has been creating an unusual, revitalist wine archive of rare and traditional Italian varietals at Osteria Pane e Salute, the nationally celebrated restaurant and wine bar she shares with her chef husband, Caleb Barber. Self-taught in the world of Italian wines, she is known for her fine-tuned work with scent and taste and her ability to pair wines and food in unexpected yet terroir-driven ways.

In Libation, a Bitter Alchemy, a series of linked personal essays, Heekin explores the curious development of her nose and palate, her intuitive education and relationship with wine and spirits, and her arduous attempts to make liqueurs and wine from the fruits of her own land in northern New England. The essays follow her as she unearths ruby-toned wines given up by the ghosts of long-gone wine makers from the red soil of Italy, her adoptive land; as she embarks on a complicated pilgrimage to the home of one of the world's oldest cocktails, Sazerac, in Katrina-soaked New Orleans; as she attempts a midsummer crafting of a brandy made from inherited roses, the results of an old Sicilian recipe she found in a dusty bookstore in Naples.

Musing on spirits from Campari to alkermes, Heekin's writing is as intoxicating, rich, and carefully crafted as the wines, liquors, and locales she loves.

An Unlikely Vineyard tells the evolutionary story of Deirdre Heekin’s farm from overgrown fields to a fertile, productive, and beautiful landscape that melds with its natural environment.

Is it possible to capture landscape in a bottle? To express its terroir, its essence of place—geology, geography, climate, and soil—as well as the skill of the winegrower?

That’s what Heekin and her chef/husband, Caleb Barber, set out to accomplish on their tiny, eight-acre hillside farm and vineyard in Vermont.

But An Unlikely Vineyard involves much more. It also presents, through the example of their farming journey and winegrowing endeavors, an impressive amount of information on how to think about almost every aspect of gardening: from composting to trellising; from cider and perry making to growing old garden roses, keeping bees, and raising livestock; from pruning (or not) to dealing naturally with pests and diseases.

Challenged by cold winters, wet summers, and other factors, Deirdre and Caleb set about to grow not only a vineyard, but an orchard of heirloom apples, pears, and plums, as well as gardens filled with vegetables, herbs, roses, and wildflowers destined for their own table and for the kitchen of their small restaurant. They wanted to create, or rediscover, a sense of place, and to grow food naturally using the philosophy and techniques gleaned from organic gardening, permaculture, and biodynamic farming.

Accompanied throughout by lush photos, this gentle narrative will appeal to anyone who loves food, farms, and living well.

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